Year 10 Drama students had an exciting time immersing themselves in making puppets.

A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object that might be shaped like a human, animal or mythical creature, or another object to create the illusion that the puppet is “alive”. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the audience. A puppeteer can operate a puppet indirectly by the use of strings, rods, wires, electronics or directly by his or her own hands placed inside the puppet or holding it externally or any other part of the body- such as the legs. Some puppet styles require two or more puppeteers to work together to create a single puppet character.

The relationship between the puppeteer and the puppet-maker is similar to that between an actor and a playwright, in cases where a puppet-maker designs a puppet for a puppeteer. Very often, though, the puppeteer assumes the joint roles of puppet-maker, director, designer, writer, and performer In this case, a puppeteer is a more complete theatre practitioner than is the case with other theatre forms, in which one person writes a play, another person directs it, and then actors perform the lines and gestures.

This was part of a student-led presentation explaining the role of a puppeteer in the theatre.